"I think we carried 50 bodies. At first, we didn't have enough stretchers, so we even moved them with our bare hands together with other people."



Yesterday (30th) night, an employee of a business in Itaewon, Mr. A, told the details of the body recovery and lifesaving situation that took place all night at the site of the disaster.



Immediately after finding the fallen people, Mr. A, a strong man, helped the police and firefighters to move the body.



According to Mr. A, from 10:15 p.m. on the 29th, when the accident occurred to 2 or 3 a.m. the next day, the business officials and passersby assisted in the rescue operation, such as performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and moving the body.



This was because there was a shortage of workers and equipment until the 119 rescue teams from other regions, including Gyeonggi and Gangwon, arrived at the site of the major disaster of '154 dead, 33 seriously injured, 116 light injured'.



In a sloping alley that was only 3.2m wide, the scene where the living and the dead were entangled in layers was literally a mess.



 Person A said, "I couldn't do anything except to think, 'I need to save at least one more person while carrying the body for several hours,'" he said.



He continued, "I found a person under the corpses just screaming, 'Please save me,' and I barely took them out of the floor," he said.



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Mr. A, who was working right in front of the alley where the disaster occurred, explained how crowded the crowd was that day, and pointed out that there was not enough preparation for safety compared to the expected crowd.



Person A said, "The alley where the accident occurred is right in front of Exit 1 of Itaewon Station on the subway." He said, "Since evening, Itaewon Station has already been crowded with people so much that it takes more than 20 minutes just to get up from the underground platform to Exit 1."



He continued, "I used to come to Itaewon every Halloween, but on this day, I felt that the crowds in the alley were more unusual than other times," he said.



The Seoul Yongsan Police Station, which is under the jurisdiction of Itaewon, expected a crowd of Halloween crowds and sent 200 police riot police personnel, but even this was a security-focused arrangement such as drug control.



It is estimated that 100,000 people visited Itaewon on the day of the disaster.



"At the very beginning of the crowd, of course, the police were trying to clear the passage," said A.



Mr. A also mentioned the situation in which some citizens were still surrounded by a lively atmosphere next to the accident site immediately after the accident.



Citizens singing or dancing are being swept away by public opinion as they spread online.



Mr. A said, "It is true that firefighters arrived at the beginning of the accident, performed CPR, and heard the sound of 'save', but not a few people thought this was a Halloween performance." I think it took a while to leave," he remembered.



He added, "I think there may have been cognitive dissonance due to various factors such as alcohol and the festive nature of Halloween," he said.



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As rescue workers arrived one after another during the early morning hours, Mr. A went back to his workplace.



He said that Mr. A, who had not been able to go out until the situation was rectified, was tormented by the afterimage of the scene of the disaster all day after returning home at 7 o'clock in the morning after cleaning out and cleaning up.



In particular, Mr. A, a man in his twenties, repeatedly said, "It was very sad" throughout the interview in that his peers were mainly sacrificed, and said, "Not only me, but everyone who was there moved as one with the mindset of 'I have to live'. will,” he added.



(Photo = Yonhap News)